The first Americans were there earlier
Around 22,500 years ago, children trudged along a riverbank and left their footprints behind - where the US state of New Mexico is today. The fossil footprints show that humans were already living in America during the last Ice Age. And thus several thousand years earlier than previously assumed.
White Sands National Park is known for its chalk-white sand dunes that stretch for hundreds of square kilometers in southern New Mexico. During the maximum of the last ice age, this area was lush with grass and the climate was wetter. At that time, mammoths, giant sloths and other four-legged friends roamed the shores of the lakes, which sometimes held more or less water over the course of a year. And there were people there.
Researchers led by Matthew Bennett from Bournemouth University in Poole, UK, described human footprints in a September 2021 study. According to this, numerous people once trudged through a lake shore where White Sands National Park is today. The age of the tracks: between 21,000 and 23,000 years. If the dating is correct - and experts believe it is very likely - then the prints will show the earliest undisputed point in time at which humans lived in America…
